A month. That was, give or take, the amount of time I spent in Eden before things went poorly. If I were to give an exact number, it would have been forty-one days. More than a month, really, but time had flown by.
The first week, I finally fixed up the gateway inside my soul. Then there were three days of normal missions. A longer excursion, two and a half weeks, to get yet another gatew...
2024-02-05 16:59:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 182: A Game of Questions
More time passed without much trouble. Mercury practiced smithing with Yasashiku, getting better bit by bit. Was he still making nails? Yes. But, to be fair, he was making them rather quickly now.
Occasionally, Yasashiku would also have him work on more complicated projects, such as hinges. He did decently on those, too. Having many ghost-...
2024-02-04 00:35:37 +0000 UTC View PostI threw up in an alley before I made it to the guild. There was blood on me. On my shoes, on my shirt. It clung to my hair. It was disgusting.
The smell of iron was so much worse inside a city than the wilderness. There were no earthy tones to subdue it all, only the smell and noise of more people. All people who looked at me with disgust, disdain, and distrust.
Step by step I shamb...
2024-01-29 18:50:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 181: Practice makes Perfect
“Mercury.”
Only half a page had passed. Mercury had spent his days learning a small routine for once. It mostly consisted of consistent mornings, followed by learning more smithing from Yasashiku. <Elementary Crafting> had levelled up twice more, reaching level 8.
It was a quiet voice that called out to him. Of an old fr...
2024-01-27 04:06:15 +0000 UTC View PostBefore I knew it, I was in front of the Golden Dewdrop. I breathed. I’d sunken deep into [Single-Minded]. The talent helped me focus. This time, I focused on walking, apparently, because everything else had faded into the background.
Now I stood and looked at the building. It was two stories tall, made from wood and brick and clay. There was a hole in the wall, and blood on the half of ...
2024-01-22 18:30:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 180: New Sight
In the evening, they had found Ruvah a place to stay, and it wasn’t in Mercury’s home. He would live in the gloryhall for now, where there were enough spare beds. It also helped that seekers were usually a little more used to seeing strange sorts of people than most.
Now, evening had come. The sun hanging low in the sky, the last rays drifting i...
2024-01-20 03:35:44 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the morning, we discussed what to do next. My Gateway was fully grown now, but it was not fully strengthened. It took some playing around with [Gateway] and some of Cass’ help, but eventually, I was able to summon up a new menu.
[Gateway:
That was all it said. I had no idea what a figment was, and nei...
2024-01-15 23:53:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 179: Iridescence
As quite often before, Mercury found himself waking up in a bed. It was in a familiar wooden room, in his house.
And wasn’t that quite a thought! He had a house now. All it took for him to be able to actually own real estate was… being transported into a whole other world, huh.
That sunk in properly, too. He was in another world, he’d ...
2024-01-13 22:33:29 +0000 UTC View PostIt was a new day in Eden.
I woke up in our guild, Dawn of Ambition. The beds in Eden were a little less comfortable than back on the other side… Neamhan. My bed back on Neamhan was nicer. But. This side did have Ann sleeping next to me, so quite frankly, it was all worth it.
Ann, of course, was my gorgeous girlfriend. How she managed to be gorge...
2024-01-09 02:43:41 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 178: Ghost Hands
Mercury blinked at the child in front of him. “What?” he asked.
“What are you doing in this city, little storm?” The boy cocked his head, looking at Mercury curiously. “Perhaps not so little…” he muttered, unsure.
“Sorry, do I know you?” Mercury asked. There was some feeling of familiarity about the kid, but he had trouble ...
2024-01-06 02:16:26 +0000 UTC View PostSomewhere, far away, there was a room that didn’t exist.
Someone, though perhaps calling them a “person” would be an exaggeration, sat on a chair in that room. It was a featureless chair, made as though drawn with one continuous line, solid white with black lines denoting its edges.
Without those lines, no one could have told where the edges la...
2024-01-01 19:57:17 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 177: Frayed
‘Yr’enzel,’ old Uunrahzil greeted him. ‘I see thou’st found a Truth?’
Mercury regarded his teacher and, frankly, friend. He smiled, then nodded. ‘I have.’
There was an undertone of thanks in what he thought at Uunrahzil. The old creature smiled, too, seeming elated with their student’s success. Whisperstar flitted across the sky...
2023-12-30 01:20:01 +0000 UTC View PostWe also have a discord server now! To talk about the story, ask questions, or just hang out in general ^^
If you discord is linked to your patreon, you automatically join and get a fancy role letting people know you're a patreon. You can also send me a colour with its hex code and I can make your name that colour c:
For anyone who doesn't wanna link discord and patreon, here's the i...
2023-12-25 09:23:38 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone! remember that second series I was working on? Book 1 is done! I'm putting it on patreon for all paid tiers, since I'm just gonna include tenets in my already existing tier. Which means, to everyone who reads Mercury, you get a new free book!
To all Tenets readers who are just joining, first of all, hi! Second of all! I hope you love the book. I put a lot of effort in it, and...
2023-12-24 23:42:36 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 176: Slices of Cake
Midas walked into the small house, looking around, and judged it… inadequate. The furniture was made from regular wood, without any decorations. The cushions on it were entirely mundane. Nothing magical or comfortable.
The ceiling and the floorboards of the upper floor were one and the same. In the kitchen, there wasn’t even any cushioning ...
2023-12-23 00:12:53 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 175: Apology Gone Wrong
Mercury pranced around the house. Their house. His house, partially. Zyl and him signed the ownership deed together. Mercury’s handwriting had been a little messy, controlling the pen with <Telekinesis> certainly was an experience, but he was used to making it work like hands, so it went just fine at the end of the day.
A l...
2023-12-16 02:02:32 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 174: To Mercury!
Mercury liked going out to drink. Even with such a strange, motley crew like his current companions, there was a charm to it. Being able to let loose, and not focus on all the pressing issues for just a little while.
He didn’t like getting completely smashed, though. Having gaps in his memory was something he especially minded. Then again, given...
2023-12-09 04:21:34 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 173: Disorganised Coincidences
There was a brief lull in the conversation, then. People looking around, seeing who’d speak first. Gazes swiping across the room.
Eventually, they did all find the bishop. Mercury locked onto him first, willing to be patient in catching up with his friends. Then Zyl followed the mopaaw’s gaze, locking onto the old man.
Aver...
2023-12-02 04:17:40 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 172: Get-Together
The days passed peacefully.
Sometimes, Nir came to visit. Sometimes she didn’t. Zyl’s mother had recovered from her injuries, too. Fully transforming into a dragon did that, though she suffered from mana exhaustion for a few days as well, having emptied her entire pool.
Mana, after all, did partially come from the outside. It needed to ...
2023-11-25 03:53:32 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 171: Chasing Sunlight
The journey home was just as swift as the journey to the mountain. The roles, however, were inverted.
Where Mercury was the healthy one before, Zyl now instead looked much better off. And where Zyl was uncannily gorgeous, well, no, he was still the one looking uncannily gorgeous. Mercury looked as if someone had taken him, wrung him like a ra...
2023-11-18 03:28:55 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 170: Cats need Naps
Berthorn stood and stared at him for just a moment, then regained his mind for just a moment. “Just die!” he yelled, stretching out his hand.
<Witnessed>.
Berthorn crumpled to his knees, his breath catching in his chest. He was sweating, hard, pearly and droplets coalescing on his skin at the same time as shiver...
2023-11-11 01:45:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 169: Rain Falls
Berthorn instantly shifted his Skill over to Trinya. The beast had not shown any signs of escaping, firmly trapped within his prison of acid and poison. Instead, when he shifted his attention onto the genuinely, fully grown and fully realized dragon in front of him, the warning bells rang in his head.
<Paranoid> was the loudest among them. Th...
2023-11-04 04:32:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 168: Fire and Brimstone
Mercury felt a storm crash upon his fur.
No, even calling it a storm would have been inadequate.
Mercury was a friend of the <Wind>. The air, quite literally, would shy away from him. Try to keep him safe. Despite that, the simple act of Zyl throwing a punch created winds so strong he saw rocks as large as him be blown away and ...
2023-10-28 01:18:41 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 167: Freedom is finding Water in the Desert.
Zyl, Mercury, and Irrithuriel immediately started scrambling.
“What do you mean it’s moving?!” Zyl asked, hopping up from his chair.
“It’s moving, Zyl! East, east, it’s going east right now!” Mercury said, also hopping down.
Irrithuriel was up before either of them, desperately heading for her ...
2023-10-21 03:55:38 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 166: Gratitude
“Is it working yet?” Zyl asked.
“I dunno,” Mercury answered.
“I don’t feel anything.”
“You shouldn’t,” the mopaaw said.
“It really feels like I should be feeling something by this point,” Zyl replied, his eyes vaguely drifting across the ceiling.
“Just be patient.”
“You’ve said that for t...
2023-10-14 01:16:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 165: Thievery, except only stealing what they aren’t looking for
Trinyakorie sat at her desk - her distinctly damaged desk - and wore a very ugly expression on her face. Her teeth were grit, her nose scrunched up, and multiple veins showed on her forehead. She seemed just about ready to explode, and quite frankly, she was.
One of her workshops had been ...
2023-10-07 02:11:46 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 164: Tactical Breaktime
“Wait, that worked?!” Irrithuriel looked at Mercury, completely aghast as he showed the map to her. Getting out had been much easier, though his resources were nearly empty by the end. Still, he was able to quickly scale a bit of the cliffside and hide there, regenerating, before taking a path that would be completely impossible for ...
2023-09-30 01:05:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 163: This is a Heist Story now.
Nir read over the letter in her hands again. The servants brought it to her, saying it came without a sender, but that it was not magically tampered with. Which seemed strange, because who sent mundane letters these days? But it was the best way to stay unnoticed.
She swiftly opened the document with her claws, reading its contents....
2023-09-25 02:25:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 162: Plotting and Scheming and maybe a bit of Tomfoolery
Zyl and Nir talked, for a long, long while. It was evening when they started, and by the time they were done, it was past midnight. Mercury had zoned out for a good bit of it at first, when it was about their family things. Later on, when they were more busy catching up, he chimed in.
He learnt more about Ni...
2023-09-16 03:10:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 161: Honesty
Not too long after his first bit of ice magic, Mercury showed it off to Zyl, who praised him and gave him a hug for it. Irrithuriel just so happened to see it as well.
“You’re a little freak, aren’t’cha?” the old lady asked in her coarse voice.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m calling you a monster,” she elaborated, and...
2023-09-09 01:51:15 +0000 UTC View Post